1. Field of the Invention
One aspect of the present invention relates to a mobile apparatus, in particular, to a mobile apparatus equipped with operating keys used for inputting characters or symbols.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a mobile apparatus, such as a mobile phone, has various functions including: an address book function, a mail function through a network, such as Internet, a browser function for reading Web pages, and the like, besides a simple communication function by telephone call.
In particular, a composition function for writing provided in the mobile apparatus is increasingly used to write relatively long composition including symbols, such as phrases from diaries on Internet, called blogs. Accordingly, in order to improve operationality in writing such compositions including symbols, there is suggested a mobile apparatus in which toggle input can be performed by using operating keys provided in the mobile apparatus, or a mobile apparatus in which a user can operate two slide-type input units by both hands to perform matrix input.
Hitherto, many efforts have been made to achieve fast character input on the mobile apparatus and to allow the user to input characters and symbols with the number of presses of keys as small as possible. Although a character can be input fast to some extent, in order to input a character string including a plurality of components, such as characters or symbols, it is necessary to select a prescribed fixed phrase on a submenu screen. In addition, in order to input a character string, a large number of presses of keys are needed. For this reason, it is difficult to achieve fast character input.